Because of overall design and structural limitations, the grain hoppers of commercial combines also have limited capacity. When the hopper becomes filled, the farmer must empty the contents thereof into a truck before continuing with the harvesting operation. During harvesting, the farmer is often times faced with time constraints because of impending weather conditions. Under such circumstances, farmers would prefer to have combine hoppers with greater capacity to avoid stoppage for unloading the hopper. Unfortunately, there are no attachments for combine hoppers which would increase the capacity thereof.
However, extensions have been provided for increasing the load capacity of truck or trailer bodies. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,095,838, to Beeler, discloses an extensible and collapsible extension device for a truck body. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,544,196, to Schmeichel et al., also discloses an extension attachment for a truck body. In the Schmeichel et al. Patent, the flexible side wall is raised and lowered by toggle linkages, which have to be locked in the extended position, and which is partially detached from the extension device in the collapsed position. Because of their particular construction and manner of operation, neither of these prior art truck body extensions are directly adaptable for use with combine hoppers.